Specter
by Rogue Hunter
Summary: Something is going on at the Hunter base. There are numerous malfunctions, hunter teams keep getting ambushed, and nobody can figure out who's behind it. Chapter 2 updated
1. Prologue

Discalimer: I do not own any of the characters from Megaman X or any other Megaman series.  
  
Specter  
  
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Prologue  
  
A lone figure stood upon a hilltop and observed the frantic activity outside the Maverick Hunter headquarters. The Hunters were doing their best to deal with the flood of frightened refugees seeking shelter from the Nightmare, but because of the losses they suffered to the Sigma virus during the Eurasia crisis they were nearly overtaxed. The Hunters worked feverishly to process the refugees as quickly as possible and assign them a place to stay until they could be moved to another location or the current crisis ended. The fear emanating from the fleeing reploids outside the base was strong it was almost tangible. It didn't matter that the Nightmare had yet to be seen near the Hunter headquarters; what mattered to those outside was reaching safety, whether real or perceived.  
  
The base security guards had donned full riot gear and were attempting to maintain order as the mass of refugees tried to push their way past the checkpoints and into the base. The cold, emotionless look on the guards' faces did little to ease the fear of the refugees as they pleaded for admittance to the base. The eyes of guards however were filled with sympathy, as the each guard tried to think of a way to help speed up the admittance process without letting the crowd overrun the base.  
  
One guard was knocked down and nearly trampled by the crowd. His comrades forced back the panicked reploids and helped him back onto his feet. The guards shouted for the refugees to remain calm and wait for their turn.  
  
Looking at the scene brought back memories of a previous war to the figure as it watched. Similar scenes had played out at various hunter outposts then as well. The figure shook its head to clear away those memories, the good ones as well as the bad.  
  
"Fools . . . they don't realize that this is only the beginning," the figure muttered to itself. A malicious grin spread across its face as it continued speaking, "I only have to wait a little while before I can make my move. Then he will pay . . . all of the Hunters will pay for what happened . . ." 


	2. Chapter 1

Disclaimer:  I do not own X, Alia, Zero, or any other Megaman character from any of the series.

**Chapter 1**

            The Maverick's attack knocked Maxter flat on his back.  The buster shot had reduced his brown armor to a charred, mangled mess.  Warnings and see through diagnostic heads up displays appeared before his eyes to tell him just how badly hurt he was.  His internal energy display showed his power at 23%, another HUD displayed a list of damaged systems, and yet another was kind enough to tell him about the massive amount of coolant and hydraulic fluid his body was losing.  He shut off all of the displays except for his IE HUD.  He knew that they were there to let him know what his status was, but he found them distracting in the middle of a firefight.  As Maxter opened his eyes and struggled to lift his head up to see just how bad the damage was for himself, he decided that his status could be summed up in one word . . . screwed.

            _I can't move my legs or arms, I'm bleeding all over the place, when I look down at my body I can see my insides, and I'm separated from the rest of my unit . . . I am definitely screwed._

            He looked up over his feet at the Maverick who had attacked him and wished he hadn't.  The enemy reploid was charging up his buster for the kill shot.  It didn't help any that Maxter recognized him as a member of the 3rd Unit who had gone missing during the colony drop after Sigma had spread the Virus all over the planet.  In fact, all of the Mavericks he had fought today had been Hunters prior to that fateful day.

            _It looks like we finally figured out what happened to you.  I can't believe I'm going to die at the hands of a former comrade. This sucks._

            Maxter saw the ex-Hunter fire.  He closed his eyes and braced himself for the end.

            He heard the shot hit something metallic and the sound of dissipating plasma.  Maxter opened his eyes, surprised that he was still alive, and saw why the blast hadn't reached him.  The 10th Unit's commander, Knight, had come from nowhere and blocked the shot with his shield.  The gold and black reploid, whose armor looked like something from the Middle Ages, quickly swung the battle-ax in his right hand at the Maverick before he could fire another shot.  The ax buried itself deep into the enemy's chest, causing him to explode as his reactor went critical.

            Knight was relieved that he had found another member of his command alive.  He still didn't know how a routine patrol in this sector of the Rocky Mountains had gone so wrong.  They had detected some odd energy signals coming from a nearby cave after arriving in the area and had gone to investigate.  As a result, they had walked right into an ambush and the unit had gotten separated when a grenade tossed by one of the Mavericks caused a rock slide.  Right now though how they had been ambushed didn't matter, what did matter was getting rid of these Mavericks and finding the rest of his team.

            Knight let his shield absorb the brunt of the blast and dashed towards the cave that had been the source of the signal.  The two Mavericks who were supposed to have been covering their deceased ally came out of the cave and aimed their assault rifles at the oncoming Hunter.  They never got the chance to fire before Knight was on top of them.  He continued his dash and slammed into one of the Mavericks with his shield, pinning his opponent against the side of the mountain next to the cave entrance.  Knight kept the Maverick pinned as he pivoted his body and decapitated the other Maverick with his ax.

            Before Knight could deal with the Maverick pinned down by his shield, he heard something land next to him with a dull thud.  The next thing Knight knew he was flying through the air and fell hard on the ground.  The 10th Unit's commander looked up to see a pair of Mavericks on a mountain ledge above him to his left.  He recognized one of them as the Maverick who had been throwing grenades at his team earlier and he noticed that the other Maverick had an assault rifle aimed right at him.  Knight brought his shield up to protect himself as the reploid opened fire.  The armor piercing rounds from the assault rifle tore through Knight's shield and body.  The Hunter grimaced in pain as he felt a round shatter his right knee joint.  Another round hit his left shoulder and caused the arm holding his shield to go limp.  Knight tried to make his way into the cave so that he could have some cover while he tried to figure out what to do next.

            Maxter could only lay there and watch as his commander tried to make it to safety.  He tried in vain to get up and fire his own weapon at the Mavericks and draw their attention away from Knight, but the damage he had sustained prevented him from doing so.  Maxter then noticed what looked like a small group of rocks sliding down a mountain slope and landing near the cave.  The rocks reached the ground and one of them pointed itself right at the Mavericks and fired a rocket propelled grenade at them.  The projectile destroyed the ledge the two reploids had been standing on causing them to fall to the ground below.  The "rocks" then aimed a buster pistol at the Mavericks and fired twice.  The shots left both of the Mavericks with gaping holes in their heads.

            Maxter lay there amazed at the speed with which the Mavericks had met their end.  He saw the "rocks" help Knight to stand up and supported the commander as they began to come towards back towards Maxter.  As they got closer, Maxter realized that the "rocks" were actually a reploid whose armor had been camouflaged to match the surrounding terrain.  He grinned as his fellow Hunters reached him.

            "Thanks Mirage, I'm glad to see you.  Have you seen any of the others?"

            "They managed to regroup and take out the rest of the Mavs.  Then we split up to try and find you and Knight . . . is that the cave we were looking for?"  Mirage replied as his armor shifted back to its normal gunmetal grey color.  It always struck Maxter as odd that Mirage's armor seemed a little too bulky for a six foot tall reploid.  The shoulder-mounted RPG launcher was also a little unusual since most reploids didn't have such weapons attached to their armor.

            "Yes, that's it.  We'll check it out after we send Maxter back to HQ for repairs.  Do you know if anyone else was injured Mirage?"  Knight responded.  He was hoping that everyone else had made it out okay and that nobody else got hurt as badly as him or Maxter.

            "A few minor injuries, nothing that can't wait till we finish the investigation, but a few of us didn't make it . . . Troy got crushed in the rockslide and both Blade and Shard were taken out by a sniper . . . I'm sorry Knight, but Maggie got shot up pretty bad and I don't know if she'll survive."

            Knight tried to keep the stricken look from appearing on his face when he heard the news about his sister.  She had been so eager to join the Hunters and had been overjoyed when she learned that she had been assigned to the same unit as her big brother.  Maggie had wanted nothing more than to do something where she could make a difference.  Knight felt guilty about not being there to protect her.  He barely managed to keep his voice steady as he spoke.

            "She's a tough kid . . . I'm sure she'll be fine."

            "Commander, you and Maxter should return to HQ for repairs," Mirage said, "The rest of us can handle the cave.  Besides, it would probably make her feel better if you were there with her."

            Knight nodded and replied, "You're right, we are pretty banged up.  You and the others can finish up here and report back to base when you're done.  There could be other Mavericks around and there's no reason for you to stay longer than you need to.  Understand?"

            "Yes sir."

            With that, Mirage watched as Knight and Maxter turned into beams of light and went back to Maverick Hunter HQ.

            "Not again . . ." Slag groaned after he and the rest of the 17th materialized at the camp for the work crews in Reconstruction Zone 12 of Sector 111943.

            "Great, just great," commented Charger.  From the sound of his voice, one would have expected the scene before them to be one of total carnage with the camp in ruins and most of its inhabitants dead or under attack.  That was hardly the case.  The camp was in excellent condition and there were only a few workers hanging around and relaxing before their next shift.  "They dragged us out here for nothing again."

            "Don't talk like that.  We should be grateful that this was just a false alarm and there are no Mavericks attacking this place."

            Despite the rebuke he gave them, X could understand their frustration.  This was the tenth time they had been sent to stop a non existent Maverick attack on a work camp in the last two months.  X was glad that the remaining Mavericks were leaving the camps alone, but even he was starting to get annoyed at all the false alarms that had been received in the last few months.  A few were just where a worker thought he saw someone suspicious near the camp, one or two had been initiated as someone's idea of prank, and several of them had been the result of a series of glitches that had been plaguing the HQ's computer for the last few months.  However the Hunters had to respond to the alarms since they could not afford to assume that it wasn't a real alert, especially at the relatively defenseless camps.

            Ever since Gate's defeat two years ago; the Hunters had been organizing the reploids who had not fled underground with the humans into work crews.  After the space colony Eurasia had been destroyed, its debris had fallen to the planet and caused massive ecological damage.  The purpose of these work crews was to try and repair that damage, making the surface habitable again.  They also repaired the damage done to cities by the rampaging Mavericks during the colony crisis.  The camps served as housing for workers and equipment as well as a communications center that helped coordinate the activities of the crews within the Reconstruction Zone.  The work camps had also eased the overcrowding at the Hunter bases that had been caused by refugees fleeing the Nightmare.

            "X, come in.  What's the status of the camp?" 

            "No signs of any Mavs, Alia. Everything looks normal," X responded to the blond spotter's inquiry, "It could just be another false alarm."

            "You could be right, but the readings I'm getting indicate that there are at least five Mavericks and two ride armors . . . What?!  Now it says that they're inside the camp!  Do you see anything?" Alia replied, allowing some of the exasperation she was feeling to break through her normally calm demeanor.

            X felt sympathy for Alia's situation as he and the other Hunters scanned the camp for any signs of the supposed Maverick attack force.  He knew that the glitches that had been affecting the Hunter computer system were really starting to get to her.  Her job as a spotter required her to be able to provide accurate data to a Hunter unit in the field about enemy forces, the area they were in, and any security measures they might run into.  What vexed Alia the most about the malfunctions was that she had no way of being certain whether or not the computer was providing her with the correct readings and information she needed.  Alia didn't like the idea of sending a Hunter into a situation blind or getting them into danger because of inaccurate information, especially if the Hunter happened to be X.

            "There's nobody here except for the workers . . . unless the Mavericks are using some type of cloaking technology," X said.

            "I doubt they have the resources for that.  Looks like another false alarm," Alia sighed, "Are you going to finish checking out the area or do you want to come back to the base?"

            "We'll do a sweep of the area to make sure everything is alright and then return to base."

            "Alright . . . just be careful if you do find something."

            "I'm always careful . . ." X began.

            Alia interrupted him and teasingly said, "Oh, then that little incident with the land chaser was you being careful?"

            "Well, yeah.  I survived didn't I," X replied, "Don't worry, I'll be okay."

            "See you when get back to the base, over and out."

            X closed the channel on his communicator and turned to face his unit.  They came to attention and waited to find out what they would do next.  "Okay guys, we're doing a standard security sweep of the camp area.  Charger, Matrix, Jace, and Scanner, I want you to patrol the perimeter.  Slag, Sera, and Corg, you three check out the equipment storage area. . ."  X continued giving out assignments to the other Hunters and when he finished, they broke up into their teams to carry out their orders.

The reactions from the 17th were mixed.  Some of them didn't feel a need to carry out a patrol of the area since they believed it was a false alarm.  Others were grateful to get out of the base for a while and a few just liked the idea of getting out of the scheduled patrol for that morning.  Charger tried his best to look nonchalant but it was pretty obvious to anyone who knew him that he would rather return to base than hang around the camp any longer than necessary.  Sera and Corg didn't seem to mind since they were working together.  X just hoped that they didn't sneak off to be by themselves instead of doing their jobs, but that was why Slag was there to chaperone them.  X didn't really mind it at all; it was nice to be somewhere where the reploids were trying to do something constructive and weren't hell bent on killing him.

            Alia observed the activities of the 17th from her spotter station back at the HQ's command center.  She typed a few commands that brought up a new window that displayed information gathered by a program she had been running prior to the alert the 17th had been ordered to investigate.  The program had been gathering all of the information about the series of computer malfunctions that had been occurring at the Maverick Hunter headquarters and searching for any pattern to them.  The glitches were more extensive than just a few false Maverick alerts.  Fake intruder alerts, teleporters sending Hunters to the wrong coordinates, occasional communication blackouts, and malfunctioning security systems were all being caused by glitches that had suddenly appeared in the central computer.  Some of the human Hunters who had chosen to stay on the surface rather than go to the underground warrens most of humanity had retreated to were even blaming the recent problems with the air conditioning on the malfunctions.  Needless to say Signas had asked her, Douglas, and several other techs and spotters to find out what was causing them.

            Alia resisted the urge to curse as she analyzed the results of the program.  There was no discernible pattern to the computer malfunctions.  Every system appeared to be affected equally by whatever was causing them.  There were also none of the normal indications that they were the result of a virus.  She also remembered how she had been unable to trace the glitches back to what had caused them when she had fixed them.  

            She minimized the window and returned her attention back to the 17th's activities.  While she watched them perform a security check on the camp, Alia thought about the data she had reviewed.

            _What is causing these malfunctions? There's no sign of any viruses in the system.  _ It also doesn't appear to be the results of a program somebody loaded into the computer.  Maybe it's the result of some the system problems we had during the colony drop and the Nightmare . . . But we fixed those already.  _There was only one other possibility Alia could think of._

Somebody inside the base was responsible for what was happening.

            She didn't dismiss the notion offhand.  Many Hunters had gone Maverick a little more than two years ago.  That meant there would be at least several Mavericks familiar enough with the base's computer systems to try and sabotage them.  The only real holes in that theory was that Alia had changed the protections on the computer system to prevent the former Hunters from being able to access it and she had put in other new security measures as well.  The saboteur would also have to infiltrate the base and pass the virus scans routinely administered to all Hunters.  It also didn't make sense that a saboteur wouldn't do more than create some easily correctible glitches or just save themselves time by using a virus to create the computer problems.  The other problem was that despite the large number of anomalies plaguing the system, none of the problems were severe enough to really disrupt the Hunters' activities.

            Alia pushed the thoughts aside and chastised herself for allowing them to distract her while she was supposed to have her full attention on spotting for X's unit.  She would have to analyze that possibility later along with the data at a later time.  Out of the corner of her eye, the spotter caught Signas heading towards her post from the spotter station for the 10th unit.  She remembered that there had been some commotion over there earlier after X and his team had been sent to the camp.  The 17th had originally had a patrol scheduled before the alert had come in and Knight's squad had been given the assignment instead.  The grim look on the young general's face meant something had gone wrong there.

            Signas came to a stop at Alia's station and asked, "What's the 17th's status Alia?"

            "No sign of any Mavericks sir.  X decided to have them do a sweep of the camp to make sure that there's nothing to worry about," she replied.

            "Good . . . Have you made any progress finding the source of the computer problems?"

            "No, but I'll finish going over the data after X returns," Alia hesitated before continuing. "What happened to Unit 10?"

            Signas grimaced and spoke in a low, pained tone, "They were ambushed by Mavericks . . . just like Units 23 and 12 were last week."

            Alia absorbed the news with concern.  _Three units ambushed in such a short period of time.  How are the Mavericks pulling it off? Even during the uprisings they never managed to lay successful ambushes this often, she thought._

            "Alia," Signas started, "there's going to be a senior staff meeting at seventeen hundred.  Will you please let X and Zero know?"

            "Yes, Signas, I will.  I'll have a report about the malfunctions ready for you by then as well."

            "Thank you."

            Daniel and the remaining members of the 10th unit entered the cave shortly after Knight and Maxter had teleported out of the area.  They saw a few dead Mavericks and Mirage kneeling down next to what appeared to be some kind of transmitter.  Daniel called out to Mirage and the grey reploid stood up.

            "Here's the source of those readings we picked up," Mirage explained pointing to the transmitter.  "It looks like they wanted to draw our attention so they could ambush us." 

            "That still doesn't explain how they knew we had a patrol in this area or why we couldn't detect them until they attacked," responded Daniel.

            "Maybe this thing is responsible for that.  It could have hidden the Mavericks' signatures with the energy it was emitting," Mirage paused and regarded the device again.  "We should probably have Douglass take a look at it."

            The transmitter looked rather unimpressive.  It was a small, black two feet by two feet cube.  There was a datapad that acted as a control panel plugged into a port on the back of the box.  It certainly didn't look like it was capable of hiding a Maverick power reading, let alone broadcasting the readings the Hunters had detected when they arrived.

            "Do you really think it's safe to take that thing?  It could be booby trapped for all we know," Daniel argued, "The last thing we need to do is to bring back something to the HQ that could blow up or expose everyone to the Maverick virus!"

            "Well Daniel, contact the HQ and have them send someone who can determine whether or not it's safe to bring it back," Mirage said as he went back to examining the transmitter.

            Daniel opened a channel to the base on his communicator.  _I've got a bad feeling about this.  It seems like they went to a lot of trouble to use a transmitter to lure us to a cave when they ambushed us before we even got near it,_  he thought as he told the 10th's spotter to send a team to make sure it was safe to bring the device back with them.


	3. Chapter 2

AN: I'd like to thank everyone who has reviewed my stories. I'm sorry but this chapter took a little longer to finish than I thought it would. Please let me know what you think by reviewing my story.

**Chapter 2**

            X walked out of the teleporter room helping Slag keep a slightly woozy Charger from falling over.  The orange armored hunter had tried to help X break up a fight at the reconstruction camp between a pair of construction reploids.  The fight was started when one of the reploids accused the other of hoarding supplies, a serious charge given the limited amount of provisions the camps managed to procure on a monthly basis.  One of the brawlers had taken offense to their intervention and had taken a swing at the two hunters.  X had ducked in time but Charger, who had been restraining the other reploid involved, had gotten nailed in the back of the head.  The worker responsible had nearly freaked out when he realized what he had just done.  Once the fight was over, the brawlers were turned over to the camp's constabulary who thanked the Hunters for their help and promised to make sure the offenders were punished.  There had been no need to bring the perpetrators back to base since the camp had its own jail.

            "I'm fine you guys . . . I don't need to see the doc," Charger slurred as his teammates helped him along.

            "Sure your fine, that's why you're walking about as straight as you shoot," retorted the blue and silver armored Slag.

            "At least I don't need to use a spread buster to hit my targets," was Charger's comeback.

            "At least I hit them," Slag replied lightly.

            X listened and chuckled as the two members of his team as they fell into the familiar pattern of taunting each other.  The two of them had always done it ever since Charger joined up during the Repliforce War.  There were no real ill feelings between the two Hunters and despite what appeared to most people as the two constantly insulting one another, Slag and Charger always backed each other up whenever they entered battle.

            Charger slipped out of the supporting grips of his friends and took a few shaky steps before turning around to face them.  "See," he said, "I'm fine."

            "I still want you to go see Lifesavor," X told the Hunter, sounding just stern enough to let Charger know he meant it without sounding harsh.  "That hit really seems to have thrown your balance mechanisms off and getting it checked out won't hurt."

            "Don't worry boss, I'll make sure he gets there without falling on his face in front of the half the base," Slag said.  The demolitions specialist grinned as he continued, "Besides, we wouldn't want to keep you from doing the after-mission reports and we know how much you love paper work."

            X almost winced at the reminder of one the downsides to being a unit commander.  He didn't even want to think about the all reports that he'd have to file despite the fact the only thing that happened was breaking up a fight.  He'd have to make a general report which would be available to the unit commanders, a situational report for the intel division and Signas that would contain X's thoughts on the mission's outcome and any data too sensitive for the general report, an evaluation report on his Unit's performance during the mission, a report detailing the exact circumstances of how Charger got injured, and several others.  On top of that some bureaucrat had decided that all reports had to be done in triplicate.  X often wondered how Zero seemed to have so much more free time than him when they had the same amount of paperwork.  _Maybe the rumors are true and Zero just 'files' the report forms into the paper shredder,_ thought the Azure Hunter.

            Slag and Charger walked towards the medical wing of the base while the rest of the 17th's members exited the teleporter room and went back to the barracks, leaving X by himself.  He sighed and began walking down a deserted hall towards his office to prepare his reports.  It was still odd to see the halls of the HQ empty, prior to the Eurasia crisis the Hunter's base had been home to thousands of reploids and the halls had rarely been deserted.  Now the Hunters were barely up to half strength even with the recruits from the refugees and former Reploid Forces warriors joining up.  X normally tried to avoid thinking about the situation since it inevitably led him into a fruitless cycle of wondering what he could have done differently to prevent the spread of the Maverick virus and the colony's fall.  Why hadn't he been able to stop any of it from happening?  X tried to clear the thought from his head but the oppressive emptiness of the corridor only served to affirm his failure to stop the events of the fifth uprising.

            His victory over Gate during the Nightmare incident had done little to ease his conscience since he had failed to keep his promise to Alia about bringing Gate, her old friend and colleague, back alive.  It relieved X to know that she didn't blame him for Gate's death.  X felt better since Alia knew he had done everything he could and would have succeeded except for Sigma's interference.  She had also made it clear how grateful she was that he had tried and how much it meant to her that he had at least brought back Gate's body so they could try to repair him.   Her not blaming X bothered him a little because he felt responsible for putting Gate into a position where he couldn't defend himself against Sigma's sneak attack.  What really tore him up was the pain Gate's death had caused Alia and how she had tried to hold herself responsible for Gate's actions because of the mistakes she made in the past.  X had succeeded in convincing her that it wasn't her fault that her colleague had chosen the path he took.  The Maverick virus had driven Gate insane and was the only reason someone like him would have even considered something as horrible as the Nightmare virus to create an ideal world.  Since Gate's damage had proven irreparable, X's feeling of failure had only been reinforced.  The irony of it to X was that while he had been trying to comfort Alia during her grief, she had tried to absolve him of his feelings of guilt over his failure.  Still, the grief-stricken look on her face when she learned Gate was behind the Nightmare and when she found out he couldn't be repaired haunted X, he'd have gladly done anything to spare her that kind of pain.

            "Hi X," a soft, familiar voice called out from in front of him.  It startled the Hunter out of his train of thought and he looked towards its source, a pink armored reploid with blond bangs sticking out from underneath her helmet leaning against the wall next to his office door.  X smiled as he returned Alia's greeting, glad to get his mind off of wondering what he could have done differently during the last two uprisings.

            The spotter looked at X with concern showing in her eyes and said "Is something bothering you X?"

            "No, I was just thinking. Why?"  X asked caught little off guard at how Alia had picked up on how he had been feeling moments earlier.

            "The look in your eyes . . . when something's bothering you they usually get this distant, distracted expression," she replied, "especially after an uprising."

            "If you can read me that easily then remind me never to play against you in poker," X joked.

            Alia smiled sweetly and responded "I wouldn't be a very good spotter if I couldn't tell when something's bothering you or when you're trying to bluff."

            X felt his mood improving and was glad he had run into her, but he was also curious about why Alia had apparently been waiting down here to meet him.  Usually when they got a chance to meet and talk for a while it was in the 17th's rec room or the mess hall when they were both off duty, though the longer duty shifts imposed since the last uprising had really cut down on how often that happened.  X decided to sate his curiosity.  "So Allie, what brings you down here?"

            Alia rolled her eyes and gave X a slightly annoyed look.  The Blue Bomber knew it was because he had called her Allie.  For whatever reason, that nickname irritated her and more than a few Hunters had gotten on her bad side by calling her by it, X was among the few people who were good enough friends with the spotter to get away with it.  "Well, Signas told me to inform you about a staff meeting at seventeen hundred hours and since my shift ended a few moments ago I thought I'd catch up with you to let you know."

            "You could have told me over the com when I got back from the mission," countered X.

            "Well uh . . . yes, I suppose I could have . . .  I just felt like telling you in person . . . I mean with all the false Maverick alerts they've sent you on recently and my working on the computer glitches . . . it's just been a while since we had a chance to just talk," Alia stammered uncharacteristically.  "Besides it gives me an excuse to take a break from running analyses on the computer system for a while," she added blushing slightly and with a hint of embarrassment in her voice.

            X looked sympathetically at his friend.  Running analyses on the Hunter's computer mainframe was no simple task; there were hundreds of programs and millions of lines of code to check, any one of which could be the cause of whatever problem a programmer could be trying to track down.  It could be a long, tedious, and mind numbing job, even for someone who excelled at it like Alia.  It was only natural that at some point a person working on such a project would need to get away from it for a while.  Though X was curious about whether or not Alia had made any progress on the situation, he decided to avoid discussing that particular subject with her right now since she was apparently a bit touchy on the subject.  It was hard for the spotter to admit when something was proving difficult for her or beyond her abilities to handle.

            "I can understand the need to get away from something for a while," X told her.  "Back when I used to work in Dr. Cain's lab, whenever I got frustrated while working on a project taking a break from it usually let me view things with a clear head when I went back to finish it."

            Alia was grateful that X didn't ask about how the search for the source of the computer problems she was tracking down was going, it had reached the point that if there had been any real progress she would have been ecstatic enough to not even wait for him to ask before letting him know.   She was glad that X actually seemed to agree that taking a break from the problem for a while was a good idea and that he understood the need for it at times.  She sometimes forgot that X had been something other than a Hunter long ago; he had helped Dr. Cain create reploids after all and adapting Dr. Light's more advanced technology to work with the mainstream robotic technology of the time couldn't have been easy given how little of it anybody really understood.  What she hadn't told him was that part of the reason she hadn't been able to concentrate on her work had to do with the fact she kept thinking about what would have happened if the 17th had not been called away and had done its assigned patrol instead of the 10th unit, who had filled in for them.  X and his team probably could have pulled off one the successes that had given both them and Unit 0 their reputations for doing the impossible and escaped the ambush with no fatalities.  Then again they could have fared just as well as or worse than Knight's unit had.  That had something to do with why she had decided to deliver Signas's message personally instead of over a communicator, the manner in which she had told Zero about it.  Alia had just felt a need to see X face-to-face.  She still couldn't figure out why she had felt embarrassed when X had asked her why she hadn't just sent him a message or why she had stumbled over the first part of her response.

            "How's Charger doing?" Alia inquired.  She knew the Hunter had gotten injured during the scuffle at the work camp and since X wasn't down at the infirmary checking up on him, it couldn't have been too serious.

            "From what I can tell it seems that his balance sensors were knocked out of alignment, I had him go to Lifesavor to make sure that it's nothing serious since they hadn't recalibrated themselves by time we got back," X replied.  "How did Knight's unit enjoy the patrol?"

            The downcast look that swept over Alia's features was all the answer X needed.  The next words out of his mouth were, "What happened and how bad was it?"

            Alia looked into X's concerned, green eyes as she tried to figure out the best way to tell him what had happened.  She was caught off guard, assuming that someone else would have already mentioned it to X by now.  She had also assumed that that was what X had been worrying about when she called out to him.

            "They were ambushed," she began quietly, "Knight's team picked up some unusual energy readings and were investigating them when they were attacked.  The Mavericks managed to split them up in the mountains . . ." Alia paused for a moment trying to think of some way to soften the rest of the news, Knight and several other members of the 10th were X's friends, before continuing, "There were seven survivors total.   Knight, Maxter, and Maggie were all badly injured and sent back to base . . . Lifesavor expects them to all recover, but it will be a while before Maggie and Maxter are well enough to be put back on duty."

            X felt simultaneously relieved and upset.  He was upset because his unit was the one that was supposed to have been doing that patrol today.  If the ambush had been planned in advance then it had probably been meant for him.  The false alarm at the work camp had been a high enough priority to draw his team off of their normal duty and be sent to investigate.  That had meant that the standby unit, Knight's team, had gone on the patrol in their place instead of being the ones to respond to the camp's alarm.  He was relieved because unlike the previous ambushes the casualties had been comparatively light.  Unit 23 had been completely wiped out in a matter of minutes and Unit 12 had only had two survivors left by time an extraction team had gotten there to evacuate them.  X didn't recognize Maxter's name but he did remember Maggie from when Knight had introduced her to him.  He could only imagine how Knight felt with his sister badly hurt, probably the way X would have felt if Zero were the one injured, especially since he had been leading the mission and hadn't been able to protect her.  He was glad that the injured Hunters would recover, but it didn't quite counter the pain caused by knowing that several of his friends were never coming back.  X felt the confusing emotions of feeling it should have been him caught in the attack, but at the same time glad he had avoided it, and feeling guilty and mad at himself for being glad it had been someone else.

            "X?"

            Alia's voice snapped X back to reality.  "What Alia?" X had trouble keeping the gloom out of his voice.

            "I know Knight's your friend and I'm sorry about what happened to him, but it's not your fault," Alia began, knowing what was running through X's mind.  "You couldn't have known what would happen and we couldn't risk not sending your team out to the camp if there really had been an attack there  . . . I just wish I had been able to determine that the alert was false . . ."

            "It probably wouldn't have changed anything except that I would have been walking into the trap . . ." his reply came out stiffly.  "Anyways the computer problems aren't your fault.  The only reason we even went to the camp was because the base computer thought it was under attack," X said in a softer tone.  Right now Alia's skills were needed too much and the last thing the Hunters needed was for them to be adversely affected by her feeling responsible for the problems that resulted from the glitches in the base's mainframe.  Since Alia refused to let the Azure Hunter blame himself for things he couldn't control, X figured that he would return the favor and not allow her do the same.

            "You're right X.  What bothers me is that we still don't know how the Mavericks sneaked up on the 10th . . . their own internal sensors should have alerted them to the presence of any Maverick power readings . . ."

            It didn't take X long to reach the same conclusion as his spotter.  He bitterly thought how ironic the crack he made during the last mission about Mavericks with stealth equipment was.  _If Mavericks can hide their readings from a reploid's sensors, then even if the base were functioning right we may not have been able to detect them with its scanners._

            "That's not good," he finally said.  "If the Maverick's have developed some new stealth device to hide them from our scanners, they could be massing an army right outside the base and we'd never know it until they attacked."

            Alia didn't like that thought one bit.  Then she remembered the strange readings the 10th had been investigating just before the ambush.  "Well if those energy readings that were picked up by Knight are a result of the device, then we could at least know where they are even if we can't tell how many are there."

            X nodded.  "It wouldn't be much, but I guess we'll take what we can get.  Thanks for telling me about it Alia.  I'll stop by the infirmary later and check up on Knight and Maggie."  

            The discussion about the ambush had put a damper on the otherwise pleasant conversation.  Alia hated being the bearer of bad news, but X would have found out anyways so it was probably just as well he had heard it from a friend first.  She wished they could get back to the more cheerful mood that the conversation had started in, but she couldn't think of anyway to do it.              Alia decided to try and switch subjects.  X beat her to it by asking if she had heard the rumors that an area in South America might be safe enough for humans to live aboveground.

            "Yeah, I have.  I heard that Signas is waiting for the survey teams to report in before he sends a proposal to the council to relocate people there," she replied.

            They talked a little bit longer about the possibility of humans returning to the surface and a few trivial things, regaining a little bit of the talk's earlier upbeat attitude, before hesitantly bringing the conversation to an end.

            "Bye X, I'll see you at the meeting," Alia said before heading down the hall.

            "Later Allie, good luck with the computer system," X said, watching her leave.  He caught himself wishing Alia could have hung around a little longer-he really enjoyed chatting with her, even if he did sometimes wind up receiving bad news in the process.  He hoped it wouldn't be too long before they got another chance to just hang out and talk; something neither had much time for lately.  After a moment he entered his office figuring that if he finished the reports quick enough that he would have plenty of time to go by the infirmary to visit Knight and Maggie before the meeting.

            Maxter groaned and opened his eyes.  He quickly shut them as a bright light flooded his vision.  He no longer felt any pain in his torso, just a numb tingling sensation that was the result of the painkillers administered to reploids prior to any major repair.  The painkillers also explained why he felt so groggy.  Maxter tried opening his eyes again, this time squinting and made out a figure with a clipboard standing next to his bed.

            "No offense doc, but I can think of a lot of other things I'd rather wake up to than you're ugly mug," Maxter said, guessing the identity of the person.

            "Stop getting shot up every other mission.  That way you won't have to look at me after I finish putting you back together again," Lifesavor replied, looking at the readouts on the bed's monitors and jotting down the information on his clipboard, and without missing a beat the doctor added, "Oh and I think those belong to you"- pointing to a cart next to the bed.

            The first part of Lifesavor's reply drew a chuckle from Maxter.  It wasn't far from the truth since about any combat related mission landed him in the medical wing of the Hunter HQ.  Normally he just needed some shrapnel removed or a limb reattached but sometimes he beat up badly enough to need more extensive repairs.   Maxter sometimes joked that there wasn't a part of his body, from the neck down, that hadn't been replaced at least once.

            It was the last part of the comment that puzzled Maxter.  He knew that parts of his armor had to be removed so that the doctors could operate, but normally they just gave the armor back when it was time for the patient to leave.  The never left the armor just lying next to a patient.  But as Maxter moved his head and his gaze fell upon the cart he knew what Lifesavor had meant.  There was a small pile of reploid parts, a few of them actually rather vital ones.  His eyes widened to the size of dinner plates and his face paled for a moment.  

            "That's why I prefer to work on mechanics, they understand when you have leftover parts," quipped Lifesavor.

            Maxter regained his composure and looked the physician right in the eye and said incredulously, "I see you've been taking comedy lessons from Douglas . . . real funny."  It wasn't always easy to tell when Lifesavor was joking since he could behave as though the most absurd thing imaginable was perfectly normal and he almost always had a dead pan expression when he said anything.

            Lifesavor continued jotting down notes on his clipboard as though he hadn't heard Maxter and half mumbling, "Coolant levels, check . . . hydraulic pressure, good . . . humor module, broken . . . patient status, irritable . . ."

            The doctor lay down his clipboard and looked at Maxter.  "I'm glad to say that you'll make a full recovery.  Also Knight is just fine, we finished his repairs a little while ago and we need to make sure his new joints are properly calibrated, and Maggie will be okay.  She's resting right now."

            "Thanks doc, did anyone else make it back?" Maxter asked Lifesavor.

            "If we didn't then you're about to be talking to a ghost," came a mechanical sounding voice from behind Lifesavor.

            Maxter recognized the voice and grinned, "Hi Mirage!  I'm glad you made it back.  Where are the others?"

            The grey reploid silently, smoothly moved to the side of the bed in spite of his bulky armor.  Lifesavor recognized Mirage's model to be an old RF-27 Pathfinder, a unit that had been built for the Repliforce as a scout and equipped with a camouflage system that caused its armor to match the terrain surrounding it.  The system was why the armor on the reploids was so bulky and since it drew its power from direct feeds off of the reploid's reactor that model could not remove its armor.  Lifesavor knew that a lot of the old Repliforce's soldiers and equipment had been consolidated into the Reploid Forces after the fourth uprising.  Mirage must have been one of the survivors that had joined up with the hunters after Sigma had spread the virus during the fifth uprising.  It must have been odd for the soldier to be working alongside a group that he once considered enemies, but he didn't seem to be holding a grudge to Lifesavor.

            "Daniel is taking care of the paperwork while Jade and Garland are checking to see if there is anyone available to fill in the empty slots on our roster," Mirage replied solemnly.  "They did tell me to let you know they'll drop by later to see you guys."

            "I'm just glad they made it back . . . Thanks for the save out there Mirage, you were awesome."

            "Don't mention it," Mirage turned to face Lifesavor.  "Is it okay if I check on Knight and Maggie?"

            "Sure, Knight should be over there waiting for us to do a final check on his new parts-" Lifesavor pointed to an obviously empty cot a short distance away. "-but knowing him he's with Maggie-who's still out from the sedatives we gave her earlier."

            Lifesavor pointed to the other side of the room where Mirage saw Knight, minus his helmet and shield, sitting next to his sister's bed.  The siblings resembled each other very little.  Knight's gold and black armor looked like something from the Middle Ages while Maggie's sleek, futuristic silver armor looked like something from an anime or sci-fi movie.  Maggie's flame red hair was a stark contrast to her brother's pure white hair.  Knight was often calm and reserved while his sister tended to be excitable and sometimes let her feelings get the better of her.  The only traits they shared were their blue eyes and the desire to put an end to the Mavericks.

            "How is she?" asked Mirage as he approached Knight from behind.

            The 10th's commander didn't seem to hear the question.  Knight seemed to be lost in thought or somehow trying to will his sister back to health.  Mirage was about to leave when Knight finally responded.

            "The doctors stabilized her condition, she just needs a few more minor repairs before she can rejoin us," the commander said in a tired voice.  Knight leaned back, his expression and demeanor of someone who was exhausted emotionally and mentally.  Who could blame him though, his sister had been seriously wounded, several of his friends had just been killed, and he had been powerless to prevent any of it.

            "Mirage, I appreciate your coming down here to check on us," Knight said.  "Just please don't start telling me about how this isn't my fault and I shouldn't blame myself.  I know I made the best choices I could under the circumstances and that there was nothing I could do to prevent the ambush from happening . . . but that doesn't make it any easier to see my sister lying here or to accept the fact that I led people, who counted on me, into a trap that more than a few didn't walk away from."

            "Okay.  Just as long as what happened isn't going to interfere with your ability to lead us and you don't blame yourself for what happened.  You trained most of the people in our unit and that training is part of the reason most of us survived the ambush," Mirage responded.

            Mirage lingered for a moment before walking away.  Knight wouldn't let what happened interfere with his duty as a commander, most of his grief and self-doubt right now had to do with how he hadn't been able to protect his sister.  That wasn't something Mirage knew how to help Knight with, so he decided that it was best to leave the two alone for awhile.  As he left the infirmary, Mirage passed two Hunters.  One was in a garish orange armor and walking unsteadily as though he were drunk and the other wore blue and silver armor.  The second Hunter seemed to be intent on making sure his friend made it to whatever his destination was.

            "Hangover?" Mirage asked them.

            "I wish," slurred the orange Hunter.

            "Come on Charger, if you fall down I am not going to drag you the rest of the way to the infirmary," said Slag, steadying his friend before he fell over.

            Douglas studied the readout from the scanner as it analyzed the box shaped device retrieved from the cave near where the 10th unit had been ambushed earlier.  The results were nothing that he didn't already know; it was some kind of transmitter that broadcasted an unusual energy field that hid Maverick power readings from sensors.  The scanner had also confirmed that the machine had a range of two miles, more than enough to conceal a task force or a small outpost.  What the scanner didn't tell him was how he could open up the box shaped transmitter without taking a plasma cutter to it and the Hunter's chief mechanic was hesitant to do so.  The recovery team had determined that it was free of explosives, the Maverick Virus, or any other number of nasty surprises that someone could come up with to booby-trap the device.  That didn't necessarily mean that it wasn't booby-trapped and using a cutter was a good way to set off anything the recovery team may have missed.  Using a cutter also risked damaging some vital piece of circuitry that Douglas might need to study to figure out how the thing worked.

            Douglas slid his seat from the terminal to the table scanner the transmitter was on and began to give it a visual inspection.  _There has to be a seam from when they were putting this thing together or an access panel somewhere, he thought.  It was virtually impossible to assemble something like this without using bolts or welds to put the casing together, that meant that if he looked hard enough he could find it and open up the device's casing to gain access to its internal workings.  Douglas's normally cheerful attitude began to give way to frustration as a visual inspection turned up nothing, even the ports to plug in the datapad seemed to be part of the outer covering, and he began sliding his hands along the transmitter's sides and edges to see if he could feel anything that might be a panel.  On the left side of the box's exterior, he felt a slight indention and pressed it.  The mechanic felt something give and heard a soft click as the side of the box separated from it, giving him a full view of the circuitry inside.  _Bingo!  Now we're in business.__

            Before he could begin examining the inside of the device, Douglas heard the workroom's door open up behind him.  He turned around to see who it was; he had made it clear to his techs not to bother him unless it was important.  Douglas instantly recognized the red armored reploid with long blond hair standing in the doorway and smiled at his friend in greeting.

            "Hey Zero, What's up?"

            Zero walked in and leaned against the table the transmitter was on before responding.  "Not a whole lot at the moment . . . actually I wanted to see if you reserved those landchasers for my unit to use tomorrow.   We need them if we're going to escort that supply convoy to the warrens."

             "Yeah, I got them set aside for tomorrow," Douglas said, his smile fading a little bit.  "Just be careful with those landchasers okay?  We haven't gotten any new spare parts in awhile and I've had to cannibalize a few of the bikes to keep the rest operational."  The mechanic looked thoughtfully at Zero and asked "I don't suppose the convoy has any spare parts they could uh . . . let us borrow?"

            The crimson hunter shook his head.  "Nope, it's equipment for a hydroponics facility and a water purification plant.  I could see if the people at the convoy's destination have any parts they could send back or if there's a shipment on the way."

            "I'd appreciate that Zero.  Anything else I can do for you?" Douglas said turning back towards the captured transmitter.

            "No.  What are you working on?"

            "It's a device that the Mavericks who ambushed the 10th were using, I'm trying to figure out how it works . . ." Douglas replied more focused on the machine than the conversation.  He moved back over to the terminal to make the scanner analyze the now exposed circuits and create a blueprint of how it was put together for future reference.

            His interest piqued upon learning the transmitter had something to do with the latest Maverick ambush, Zero asked "I don't see any controls or switches on it . . . how did they turn it on?"

            "They used a datapad that plugged into it," Douglas replied absentmindedly.  "I already checked it out and there's nothing special about it . . . the pad is over on the workbench."

            Zero walked over to the workbench, saw the datapad, and picked it up to examine it.  It wasn't really impressive; it looked just like the thousands of other datapads commonly used by the military and private sector to store information or programs.  The only noticeable thing about it was that the base of the pad felt a little loose, like it was about to come off.  Suddenly the pad came apart in his hands.  After standing in shock for a minute, Zero quickly lay the pieces of the pad back on the bench and turned to Douglas.

            "Um . . . Douglas, I think I broke it . . ." he said a little sheepishly.

            "What?" Douglas turned away from the terminal, got up, and walked over to the workbench.  "Don't worry I can put it back together and I already copied the programs that were on it to the computer," he said after seeing the parts laying there.

            "Okay . . . Later Douglas, I hope you figure out a way to counter that transmitter thing," Zero said, deciding that now would be a good time for him to leave and let Douglas do his job uninterrupted.

            "I should at least know how it works before the meeting later today.  See ya then Zero," Douglas replied as Zero walked out of the workroom.

            He looked again at the broken pad; at least it wasn't anything important.  Then he noticed what looked like some kind of shielded disk storage compartment on the inside of the pad's casing.  It was unusual since most pads like this used memory chips to store data instead of a disc and there were no insertion slots or reader equipment in the pad for a disc.  Also why would someone put shielding around the disc to keep a scanner from detecting it?

            "Interesting . . ." muttered the mechanic.

            Alia sat at the computer station console typing away rapidly.  The station was one of many in the large room that the Hunters used to monitor the HQ's systems.  The room could also serve as an emergency command center if something happened to the main one.  Since there was no uprising or other major crisis at the moment, the room was sparsely staffed and a stifling silence hung in the air-the only noise to dare and break the silence was the sound of Alia working.  She had chosen to work here since the computers here, like the ones in the command center, gave her greater access to the Hunter mainframe without having to go through as many security procedures as using the computer in her office or quarters would require.

            Her thoughts occasionally turned back to her conversation with X.  She was glad that although he was understandably upset about what happened to Knight's team, he didn't seem to be trying to hold himself responsible for it.  That was probably one of X's only real flaws, sometimes he would beat himself up trying to figure out what he could have done differently in a situation to get a better outcome even if what happened had been beyond his control.  X had long ago learned to accept that during the various uprisings he had made the best choices he could at the time and that worrying about "what-ifs" couldn't change what did happen, but that still didn't always stop him from wondering about it once the fighting was over.  Sometimes it seemed like he was always trying to take the weight of the world on his shoulders.

            _Then again, so many times the fate of the world has depended on his actions . . . is it really any wonder X feels like it's his responsibility to deal with any problem that arises? Alia mused._

            She punched up a window on the screen that displayed the results of the program that had just finished running.  The program had compiled all of the information on the bugs that had appeared in the system lately and was now using a new algorithm Alia had finished writing to scan for anything that would help find their source.  She looked at the results, running them through her mind, analyzing them from every conceivable angle, searching for some answer or clue that would aid her quest.  She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead, frustrated by how there seemed to be no way of tracking the source of the problems plaguing the computer system.

            Alia had already ruled out a virus as the cause, looking for a program or file that was the culprit had been the first thing she had done.  The spotter had employed every trick she knew that could determine if the problems were the result of a virus and had come up with nothing.   That meant that either a virus wasn't the cause or it was some new type of virus that could evade all current detection methods.

            She had also checked to see if there was some non-viral program that was responsible for the glitches.  She had limited success with that method.  The problem was that by the time the bugs in the system were detected, any program that may have been responsible could have been deleted before it was found.  There were ways to restore deleted data, but you normally had to know what you were looking for when doing so.  The only other possibility was that the program was somehow disguised to avoid detection.  It just didn't make sense to make a program that created computer problems that, despite the difficulties they caused, didn't completely cripple the Hunters' ability to do their job.

            Ultimately even if the cause of the problems were found and dealt with, the Hunters would still need to find person responsible for the whole mess.  Somebody was responsible for creating and loading the program that created the glitches.  The culprit was most likely a Hunter on the base since there was no sign of the security system being hacked from the outside.  The idea of a Hunter turning traitor wasn't new, there had been quite a few actually.  Magma Dragoon and Double were probably the most notorious since their actions were not due to the Maverick Virus's influence.  It was hard for Alia to understand why a Hunter would want to aid the Mavericks given all of the destruction they had caused; especially now since the Hunters were the only ones in a real position to repair the damage the colony debris had done to the planet.  It was true that the Mavericks weren't the only group that wanted an end to the Hunters-several anti-reploid groups had been speaking out against the Hunters for years and some groups like the Brotherhood of Humanity had even committed acts of violence against reploids in general but seemed to target mostly Hunters-but it wasn't likely that those groups would be able to convince a Hunter to help sabotage the HQ, not a reploid one at any rate.

            Alia opened her eyes and scanned through the data once more.  _No matter how you look at it somebody in the base sabotaged the computer,_ she thought.  _It's not so much a matter of fixing the system as it is finding the person responsible so they can't just sabotage it again.  Maybe once we figure out how they're causing the glitches that will give us some clue as to who is doing it.  Alia sighed; it was the base security chief's responsibility to figure out who was behind all this not hers.  Her job right now was just to figure out how it was being done and figure out a way to prevent it._

            "But none of this makes sense . . . none of the malfunctions have been severe enough to interfere with our duties.  They are frustrating and cause us to sometimes deploy troops to a place where nothing is happening, but not even the ambushes our units have walked into were the result of a system error," the blond spotter mumbled to herself.  "It's like the saboteur is just haphazardly picking systems to attack and then just waiting for us to repair what they do. . ."  Alia's eyes widened as a new realization dawned on her.  

            She quickly pulled up the reports on when each bug had appeared and how long it had taken to correct each one.  She then ran the data through an old training program that gauged how spotters reacted to unexpected situations and how long it took them to respond to it.  The results seemed to reinforce her suspicions about what their hacker was up to.  The spotter altered the parameters of the program she had been using earlier to include the new information.  This time the program yielded better results.  Now that she seemed to understand what was happening, Alia just needed to figure out what the Hunter's could do about it.

            "Hurry up old man.  I can't keep this channel open for long," said a lone figure sitting alone at a terminal in a dark room.

            "This won't take long Specter . . ." replied the voice of an old man.  "What's your status?  Did you retrieve the disk?" he demanded.

            "I practically took it from under their noses and the Hunters don't suspect a thing.  I don't think they even know about it.  If you used the data I sent you earlier, then it should be no problem to use the program on the disk to bypass the security systems here," Specter replied.  "Soon they'll all pay for what they did . . . but I'll be happy just so long as _he_ pays for his crime.  When can we stop wasting time and put everything into motion?"

            "This waste of time, as you call it, is necessary.  We need this time to finish the preparations."  The glee in the old man's voice was evident as he continued speaking, "The plan is already in motion and there's nothing those meddling Hunters can do to stop it!"  Specter waited patiently as the old man began cackling insanely; sometimes the reploid doubted the geezer's sanity.  Specter began to grow impatient as the old man wasted what little time the communication channel could remain active without the Hunter's noticing.

            The old coot finally calmed down enough to speak as Specter was about to kill the channel.  "You are not to make a move until I give the signal, unless you're at risk of being discovered, or the mission is otherwise compromised.  That means that you are to stop assaulting the Hunter's mainframe for now and do nothing to draw attention to yourself.  I'll let you know when it's time to begin the final phase.  Understood?" the cold tone of the geezer's voice made it clear that his statement was a command, not a request.

            "Whatever, I'd love to stay and chat but I have to go before they find and trace this signal.  Buh-bye."  Specter said before shutting off the communication.

            "Specter!  Wait . . ." was all the old man got out before the channel was closed.

            Specter didn't often get a chance to shut up the pushy old geezer like that and found it rather enjoyable.   Specter ran a check to make sure nobody had noticed the communication.  The reploid imagined the look on the Hunters' faces, especially that of one particular Hunter, once the plan went into motion and they finally realized what was in store for them.  The reploid allowed itself a small, slightly insane laugh before leaving the room to report for duty.


End file.
